


promise me this

by theriveroflight



Category: RWBY
Genre: Anachronistic, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Canon, Promises, Rings, Volume 3 (RWBY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28414770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: STRQ week day 3: Confessions/PromisesQrow doesn't make promises often. But he makes sure he's always reminded of the ones he's made.Or: how Qrow got his rings.
Relationships: Ozpin & Team STRQ, Qrow Branwen & James Ironwood, Qrow Branwen & Raven Branwen & Summer Rose & Taiyang Xiao Long, Qrow Branwen & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	promise me this

**Author's Note:**

> MCD warning is for Summer's death discussed in-depth.
> 
> Read in the order they come up, read in the numerical order - it doesn't matter, this fic bounces around the timeline quite a bit either way. It was never designed to be linear.
> 
> Warnings: RWBY-level violence mentions, discussion of canon alcohol addiction (but as in canon he does give it up), discussions of death, self-deprecation
> 
> segment title song lyrics when applicable:  
> i. Marina - How to be a Heartbreaker  
> iii. twenty one pilots - Neon Gravestones  
> v. Taylor Swift - champagne problems

i. don’t get attached (to somebody you could lose)

Raven’s the one who starts it. She calls it a physical reminder of the vow they’ve taken, and he protests that they’re not monks, they’re about to be Huntsmen, and also they’re  _ siblings,  _ not married.

Infiltrating Beacon Academy is an easy choice — neither of them are built to deal with the weather of Vacuo, so Shade Academy is out. Haven is too close, means that they’d be more easily found out. The reputation of the Branwen Tribe has spread far within Mistral, if not very far  _ outside. _

Really, Beacon is the perfect place to go for a combination of what they want.

They have a ring on each of their fingers, a sign of the promise that both of them have made.

A promise that tells them that they can’t get too attached to anyone at Beacon. Not enough to make an impact. After all, they’re there to learn how to kill Huntsmen.

Qrow isn’t exactly enthused about killing others. He never has been. But Raven has always been the one that the tribe liked more, and that mostly kept him off their radar.

He’s never been truly  _ attached  _ to anyone besides Raven. So keeping the promise  _ should  _ be easy.

But when he gets to Beacon, he’s surrounded by people who are genuinely invested in this, who actually want to protect people that can’t protect themselves. But why? Why spend your energy defending the weak of the world?

He wants to  _ understand,  _ above all else.

Initiation isn’t exactly  _ difficult.  _ But as soon as he lands he meets the eyes of a blond man who introduces himself as Taiyang, and when Raven uses their link to meet them she glares and says that Qrow screwed things up.

(But they end up on the same team anyways, so did he really?)

In their classes they learn to fight, learn the history of Vale, learn about the wars their ancestors have fought. They learn about the kinds of Grimm native to Vale, the kinds of plants useful on the fields, about Semblances and Aura. A lot of it he already knew. A lot of it he didn’t, especially the more specific to Vale things.

And in between Summer makes them do team-building activities or something like that, trying to get him and Raven to talk to anyone else besides each other.

He isn’t supposed to get attached. But he finds himself doing so.

One of their exercises is a weapon swap. He and Raven have practiced this before — he can wield her Omen, and she can at least wield the greatsword form of Harbinger, even if he doesn’t  _ let  _ her transform it to scythe mode.

The others are new, though. Summer’s weapon is the most similar to something he  _ is  _ familiar with, so it’s a little easier, but he needs to adapt to new techniques. After all, weapons are designed to go with fighting style, and Taiyang’s is very different from his.

But it’s still fun, to see what could be, and he teaches Summer how to transform his weapon into scythe form.

“Hey, how come she gets to try?”

“I trust her more with a scythe than I trust you,” he retorts, and Summer laughs.

It’s the moment where he realizes that Summer and Taiyang  _ are  _ his friends, that he  _ has  _ become attached to his teammates, that he can’t…say that he’s kept his promise.

So he takes the ring off, and waits for Raven to notice. Raven keeps hers, and eventually he watches her  _ portal directly to Summer  _ and decides that it was high time to call her out. After all, it was her idea in the first place, and he also  _ wants  _ them to break free from the tribe.

It’s an opportunity to escape their lives, presented on a silver platter. He doesn’t want to pass it up.

She decides that she won’t, either, and they let go of the vow holding them back together.

vi. the chosen one

The two of them are still in team RWBY’s dorm. Ruby, Blake, and Weiss are somewhere else — probably with one of the other teams, or watching the next match.

It doesn’t matter to Qrow right now; he needs to take care of Yang.

He has never been good at comfort, particularly, but somehow his words manage to anyways.

After a few moments of silence, Yang says, “Promise me something.”

“What is it, firecracker?”

“If you have to choose between protecting me and protecting Ruby, pick her. I don’t…I think something big is coming, and Ruby needs to make it out.”

“You deserve to live, too,” he answers. “I’ve been there.”

“Just- promise me you’ll choose her over me. It’ll be…she needs to live out her life. I’m just making it up as I go.”

He snorts. “We all are. Nobody knows what they’re doing in this world anymore.”

“I…”

“Tell you what, Yang. it shouldn’t have to come down to a  _ choice,  _ but if it does, I promise I’ll save Ruby first.”

She nods. “Okay.” Her voice shakes a little, and Qrow knows she’s been on the verge of tears for a while.

He sits next to her, and embraces her awkwardly, letting her cry into his chest.

“It’ll be okay. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“I know it isn’t. But it sure feels like it,” she answers.

Yang is a mix of all her parents, biological and not. The sacrifice…it feels like something that Summer would ask him to promise. He couldn’t make that kind of promise to Summer. He  _ can  _ make that kind of promise to Yang, because there is  _ something  _ that is bound to happen, but Qrow hopes (hopes pleads prays) that it doesn’t come to light for a long time. That he never  _ has  _ to uphold that promise — or toss it away.

A new ring joins the others.

* * *

The Fall of Beacon happens a few days later, and they’re all rushing to get Pyrrha to the Fall Maiden, to get everyone evacuated, to kill as many Grimm as they can.

He’s the one who retrieves Ruby from the tower, unconscious from…well, there’s a paralyzed Wyvern on the tower, and he’s seen what Summer’s eyes could do to Grimm, so Ruby must have triggered them somehow…and then he sees a diadem on the ground.

It looks like the one Pyrrha wears.

There’s also someone missing a limb nearby, but he looks and sees that it isn’t anyone that he cares about saving at the moment.

Yang lost her arm, too, and something major happened with Ruby and Pyrrha.

He suspects that Pyrrha is dead, but there’s no body to be found.

They fly out from Beacon to Patch, defeated. Ruby and Yang’s other teammates have gone elsewhere — Weiss back to Atlas and who knows where for Blake, but Pyrrha’s teammates have come with them.

Ruby wakes up a few days later, and upon seeing the diadem bursts into tears.

Jaune is at her side. He’s been waiting for the past few days to find out exactly what happened to Pyrrha.

“She’s…she’s dead. Cinder killed her. I watched it happen — Cinder turned Pyrrha into ashes. And then…something happened to me, and now I’m unconscious.”

“It’s a long story, kid,” Qrow says from the side.

“She is?” Jaune asks, grasping the diadem rescued from the tower. “I…need to go tell Nora and Ren.” He takes it with him when he vacates the room.

He talks to Yang a bit, too.

She confesses that Blake ran away, and it reminds him a bit of when Raven left. He hopes that whatever’s left of team RWBY will still make it. That they won’t fall apart like he and his team mostly did.

And when Ruby goes off to Haven with Jaune, Nora, and Ren, he doesn’t hesitate before following them.

Yang will be fine — she has her father. Ruby doesn’t have anyone besides three other grieving people, and he knows better than anyone that trying to carry on while grieving rarely turns out well.

He feels the ring that he got after making the promise to Yang.

Qrow supposes that he’s kept it now. That he chose Ruby.

It still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

v. you won’t remember

Shortly after he arrives at Beacon, James comes to him, and he asks Qrow to promise that one day he’ll sober up.

Qrow asks him why, of course, and James responds that it’s because he knows people that have lost themselves. He responds that he has it under control, but makes the promise anyways.

He forgets to get something to signify it before the Fall of Beacon.

He saves James from an incoming Grimm, the look on his face shock at first before resolving into something simultaneously determined and kind.

“Thank you, Qrow.”

He feels awkward.

But after the Fall, he can’t take it upon himself. There was so much tragedy…he knows he can’t. It’s to forget. It’s to cope. He’s used to it, at this point, and even if he tried it wouldn’t go well.

* * *

But he does. And he remembers the promise he made to James two years ago. He never got anything to symbolize it. Perhaps he should now that he’s kept it.

* * *

“I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you.” James has changed a lot since they last saw each other, but he still manages to spare some sort of compliment for him. Qrow perhaps thought that he was suffering after the Fall, and that is blameless, but he wasn’t dealing with it.

Just like a typical Atlesian, really.

“Why?” Even though he knows the answer.

“You kept your promise.” James pulls back his hand, and Qrow wonders what he would have done.

“I didn’t mean to,” he confesses.

“I know.” James offers Qrow a smile, and for a second it takes him back to slightly simpler times, before there  _ was  _ a legitimate threat, in that decade-or-so that he spent scouting and scouting and not finding anything — and then Amber almost died, and everything spiraled from there.

“Take care of yourself, yeah?” Qrow gets up, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“I will.” 

ii. stay alive

But the physical representation of a  _ promise  _ isn’t exactly a bad idea. It sticks around in his mind, but no one asks him to make any promises for a long time.

Not until team STRQ is about to graduate, and they sit in Ozpin’s office all together.

“I wanted to tell you something…important.” He folds his hands atop the desk. “All four of you.”

He tells them that magic is real. That there is a master of the creatures of Grimm. That there are  _ really  _ four Maidens. That the Girl in the Tower is not just a fairytale.

That she has become the master of the Grimm. And that he has seen it all, and that they have been fighting for eons now. And now he asks that they join the fight.

And he asks them all to promise that they will live. That they will carry on, no matter what. Summer volunteers first.

Qrow goes second. Tai follows, seeming a little nervous, but so is he.

Raven is the most reluctant, but in the end she does take it up.

* * *

Ozpin gives them the ability to transform into birds. It’s kind of nice, actually. Qrow likes it. Raven calls it another tether, something else to pay back in return.

Ozpin responds just by asking them to promise that they won’t die young, and that will be payment enough.

Qrow picks up a ring from a store, and slides it on. The visual representation of a promise.

* * *

In some sick coincidence, the first to jump into the fight is the first to die. Raven is the one who informs them, before taking off yet again on her own, claiming that she has to go back. That she cannot stay.

Qrow doesn’t ask why, but he  _ does  _ attempt to follow her in bird form. She almost shoots him out of the sky, which was enough to persuade him to quit and turn back.

After all, he doesn’t want to die now that there are people that need him. Ruby, and Yang, and Taiyang — they’re all going to need his support.

They’re all going to need him to stay alive, and that is what he promised.

iii. you won't mourn a day (move onto someone else)

“Hey,” Summer says. “I have to do some stuff. It’s not…Salem stuff, or magic stuff. It’s  _ me _ stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

“I have to worry,” Qrow responds.

“Well, I was going to ask you…what does the ring mean? I’ve wanted to know for a while.”

(He doesn’t know it then, but later in the recollection there’s the implied  _ And I won’t get to ask after this.) _

(Summer knew her fate, Qrow suspects.)

“It’s the representation of a promise I made,” he answers. “I promised that I would stay alive.”

“That’s a good promise to have.” She takes off one of the rings she keeps around her neck. “I wanted to give you this because I’m going to ask you to promise me something.”

“What is it?” He doesn’t want to accept a promise without knowing what he’s getting himself into.

“Promise me that you won’t blame yourself if…if it goes wrong. It  _ will not be your fault,”  _ she stresses. “It is  _ not  _ always your fault that bad things happen. Sometimes they just do.”

She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand how it’s  _ always  _ there, how it always manages to turn things inside out.

“I…can’t make that promise.”

“For me?” she asks.

Somehow, he’s hit by the realization that he may never see her again.

“I promise.” They embrace briefly, and he goes to put the ring on his finger when he sees the inscription within. “Where did you get this?”

“They belonged to my parents. The people burying them let me take them off their bodies to have them,” she answers, and gets up.

Dark clouds are gathering overhead.

The four of them gather to see her off, and he spots a red-eyed raven in the trees take off after Summer leaves.

* * *

Sitting at her memorial, Qrow almost tosses the ring over the edge of the cliff, and then he remembers what exactly it is. He should treat Summer’s parents with the respect they deserve.

Because he  _ hasn’t  _ kept his promise, he feels guilty about doomming Summer to this. He thought it was the last time he would see her — and it was. The worst possible outcome. If he had never been on their team, it wouldn’t have turned out like this. He  _ knows  _ it would be different, because they all complimented each other in ways that made them the team they were. Without him, they wouldn’t quite have that same degree of synchronization that made them prodigies at Beacon. And they would have never caught Ozpin’s eye, and that wouldn’t lead them here.

It was Summer’s thing, but he suspects that it was her choice to go out and do something for the fight. He’s tempted to give up on the fight right then, run like Raven did. But he knows, he knows that no matter how far he runs it’ll catch up to him eventually.

So he’ll stay.

He turns back towards the house, and then kneels to bury the ring in the dirt near the stone. There’s no corpse — Raven didn’t bring that with her, she probably flew back in bird form to inform them ASAP and couldn’t carry it with her.

But there will be  _ something  _ within the dirt, at least.

iv. protecting our own

Taiyang asks him, before he leaves to go to Beacon and speak to Ozpin about the rumors, about Salem readying an attack, one thing.

“Ruby and Yang are at Beacon,” Tai tells him.

“Isn’t it a little early for Ruby?”

“Ozpin decided to take her in early. I’m not sure I agree with the decision, but she’ll outshine everyone there soon.”

“Really.” Qrow takes a drink out of his flask. “Is there anything else?”

“Keep them safe?”

“I promise.”

Qrow has never taken his promises lightly. He carries them with him, and he’ll try his best to keep them as best he can.

And he does, with some distractions. He takes care of Yang after the match against Mercury, he goes to find Ruby after Weiss reports that she never got off the tower, but the Wyvern on it was paralyzed and there was  _ something  _ up there.

He’s willing to keep them safe. Whatever it takes, and really he doesn’t intend on breaking the promise to Tai. Even if he  _ fails,  _ he’ll do as much as he can to protect them.

They might not need his protection, and he’s willing to let them make their own choices, but they’re still his nieces and he’ll take care of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if I'll do the rest of the week, but keep a lookout on Tumblr - any art will go on my art blog @the-river-of-light and any writing will be posted here & my writing blog @beunforgotten.


End file.
